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Planning Eleventh Grade

We are getting ready for eleventh grade! I think every homeschooled high schooler has a high school course that looks slightly different due to the interests and goals of that particular child, so I am uncertain if you really can follow what any homeschooled high schooler is doing as a particular template.

Homeschooling high school also looks different from state to state within the the United States because homeschoolers may have different opportunities available to them depending upon what state they live in. In our state, we don’t receive any money from the government toward homeschooling supplies or classes, and we cannot participate in anything the public school has to offer. Because of the lack of ability to participate in public school classes or activities, homeschoolers here have brought it all together with outside classes for high school available a la carte, homeschool high school sports teams, homeschool proms and senior banquets and more. I think the main problem in my area is finding secular classes for high school, as much of it tends to be based upon curriculums such as Abeka or Bob Jones or Apologia, let alone something that knows about Steiner education at the high school level. However, there is one place not too far from me that does have some secular offerings.

So far, this is what we have done for high school for our college bound teen, organized loosely into credit hours based upon experiential offerings (lots of field trips) and living books and more.

Foreign Language – Spanish I and Spanish II (Oak Meadow)

Social Studies — American History that I put together; working our way through American Government (Oak Meadow and lots of living books we added to fit in with the theme of Greeks and civics found in Waldorf Schools tenth grade blocks), working our way through World History over three years (I put together and it includes a lot of social justice ideas that tie in with our literature blocks).

Science – Honors Biology with lab (I used Oak Meadow but added quite a bit of my own to it); AP Environmental Science with lab (outside class); this year will be Chemistry with lab at home and Botany will probably stretch between this eleventh grade year and next year.

Languague Arts – Literature and Composition I and II (I put together); this year will be World Literature outside the home and we will be doing Parsifal and Hamlet plus some more African-American literature at home – this year in tenth grade we focused on ancient epics and contemporary post-Harlem Renaissance African-American literature.

Mathematics – Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II (all outside classes). This year is Pre-Calculus. Our student took both Geometry and Algebra II in tenth grade concurrently because she wanted to be able to hit Pre-Calculus in eleventh grade and Calculus in twelfth grade.

Electives: Music Theory and Performance I, II, this year will be III; Equine Medicine and Rehabilitation, Health (I pieced together with Oak Meadow but added many more resources). Our daughter has an interest in psychology and medicine, specifically infectious diseases, so trying to see what electives we can work around those interests.

As a recap, in homeschooling high school we can garner credits just through number of hours (roughly 120 hours for a credit in social sciences, language arts and 180 for science credits with lab; through getting through a textbook (probably least used in our house and definitely not used in Waldorf Education in a school setting) or testing for credit. For example, some homeschoolers garner credits by studying for a CLEP exam.

My biggest piece of advice for homeschooling high school, especially for those who are college-bound, is to know it will all come together over the course of four years and you will have all the things you need, so don’t panic! Be creative in your ways of looking at the basic ideas of math, science, etc. There are many ways of doing this and then labeling what you have done in the “educate- ese” language that colleges understand. 🙂

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4 thoughts on “Planning Eleventh Grade”

Goodness when did these kids all get so big! My 11th grader also is very interested in psychology and medicine. FWIW we put together an elective Introductory to Psychology course for her using ‘The Story of Psychology’ by Morton Hunt as a spine along a few other books and articles that appealed to her specific interest in forensics . It has been good book choice for an upper grades course. She has found it very engaging- not too easy but not too overwhelming in a busy 11th grade schedule. Good luck with your coming year!

Hi Carrie. I am also planning eleventh grade for next year. We have used some Oak Meadow as well. Do you fit the Oak Meadow courses into blocks or do you keep them as Year long track or semester courses? I’m finding it challenging to switch my planning mind to the year long track course model. Thanks!

I found that super challenging as well! Biology we did pretty straight through but saved the human portion of it for this year to go with embryology and the plant portion for eleventh grade (and gosh, we have done so much extra biology work it’s probably enough hours for two credits as this point!). The American Government I had to split into blocks and it is taking us two years. So, no I haven’t found we have been overly successful in switching to a year long thing. I think for my second and third children we will just keep going in blocks and I will use the syllabi as more of a guide to build my own blocks. Hope that helps! Love hearing from others homeschooling high school. Thanks for writing in! Blessings,Carrie